The Kingdom of Myrmidon
While the warrior people named Myrmidons have existed over many years, it was only when Achilles returned to the land of the living that the Kingdom of Myrmidon was born. Physically the land can not claim much except sand and more sand, but within the boundaries of the city, life has flourished. The royal family of Myrmidon started with Achilles, who took the kingdom's name for his royal house. His twin children, Panos & Lyra, were the first to have 'Myrmidon' as their surname. Aegina Aeacus & The Beginning Before Achilles returned to the realm of living men, the island was known as Aegina, and ruled by the legendary hero, Aeacus. Aeacus was son of Zeus and Aegina, a daughter of the river-god Asopus. He was born on the island of Oenone or Oenopia, to which Aegina had been carried by Zeus to secure her from the anger of her parents, and whence this island was afterwards called Aegina. According to some accounts Aeacus was a son of Zeus and Europa. Some traditions related that at the time when Aeacus was born, Aegina was not yet inhabited, and that Zeus changed the ants of the island into men (Myrmidons) over whom Aeacus ruled, or that he made men grow up out of the earth. Ovid, on the other hand, supposes that the island was not uninhabited at the time of the birth of Aeacus, and states that, in the reign of Aeacus, Hera, jealous of Aegina, ravaged the island bearing the name of the latter by sending a plague or a fearful dragon into it, by which nearly all its inhabitants were carried off, and that Zeus restored the population by changing the ants into men. These legends seem to be a mythical account of the colonization of Aegina, which seems to have been originally inhabited by Pelasgians, and afterwards received colonists from Phthiotis, the seat of the Myrmidons, and from Phlius on the Asopus. Aeacus while he reigned in Aegina was renowned in all Greece for his justice and piety, and was frequently called upon to settle disputes not only among men, but even among the gods themselves. He was such a favourite with the latter, that, when Greece was visited by a drought in consequence of a murder which had been committed, the oracle of Delphi declared that the calamity would not cease unless Aeacus prayed to the gods that it might. Aeacus prayed, and it ceased in consequence. Aeacus himself showed his gratitude by erecting a temple to Zeus Panhellenius on mount Panhellenion, and the Aeginetans afterwards built a sanctuary in their island called Aeaceum, which was a square place enclosed by walls of white marble. Aeacus was believed in later times to be buried under the altar in this sacred enclosure. A legend preserved in Pindar relates that Apollo and Poseidon took Aeacus as their assistant in building the walls of Troy. When the work was completed, three dragons rushed against the wall, and while the two of them which attacked those parts of the wall built by the gods fell down dead, the third forced its way into the city through the part built by Aeacus. Hereupon Apollo prophesied that Troy would fall through the hands of Aeacus's descendants, the Aeacidae. Aeacus was also believed by the Aeginetans to have surrounded their island with high cliffs to protect it against pirates. Several other incidents connected with the story of Aeacus are mentioned by Ovid. By Endeïs Aeacus had two sons, Telamon (father of Ajax and Teucer) and Peleus (father of Achilles), and by Psamathe a son, Phocus, whom he preferred to the two others, both of whom contrived to kill Phocus during a contest, and then fled from their native island. After his death, Aeacus became (along with the Cretan brothers Rhadamanthus and Minos) one of the three judges in Hades, and according to Plato especially for the shades of Europeans. In works of art he was represented bearing a sceptre and the keys of Hades. Aeacus had sanctuaries both at Athens and in Aegina, and the Aeginetans regarded him as the tutelary deity of their island In the Time of Peleus.... In the Time of Achilles Peleus and his brother Telamon killed their half-brother Phocus, perhaps in a hunting accident and certainly in an unthinking moment, and fled Aegina to escape punishment. In Phthia, Peleus was purified by Eurytion and married Antigone, Eurytion's daughter, by whom he had a daughter, Polydora. Eurytion received the barest mention among the Argonauts (Peleus and Telamon were Argonauts themselves) "yet not together, nor from one place, for they dwelt far apart and distant from Aegina;" but Peleus accidentally killed Eurytion during the hunt for the Calydonian Boar and fled from Phthia. Peleus was purified of the murder of Eurytion in Iolcus by Acastus. Astydameia, Acastus' wife, fell in love with Peleus but he scorned her. Bitter, she sent a messenger to Antigone to tell her that Peleus was to marry Acastus' daughter. As a result, Antigone hanged herself. Astydameia then told Acastus that Peleus had tried to rape her. Acastus took Peleus on a hunting trip and hid his sword then abandoned him right before a group of centaurs attacked. Chiron, the wise centaur, or, according to another source, Hermes, returned Peleus' sword with magical powers and Peleus managed to escape. He pillaged Iolcus and dismembered Astydameia, then marched his army between the rended limbs. Acastus and Astydamia were dead and the kingdom fell to Jason's son, Thessalus. .]]After Antigone's death, Peleus married the sea-nymph Thetis. He was able to win her with the aid of Proteus, who told Peleus how to overcome Thetis' ability to change her form. Their wedding feast was attended by many of the Olympian gods. As a wedding present, Poseidon gave Peleus two immortal horses: Balius and Xanthus. During the feast, Eris produced the Apple of Discord, which started the quarrel that led to the Judgement of Paris and eventually to the Trojan War. The marriage of Peleus and Thetis produced seven sons, six of whom died in infancy. The only surviving son was Achilles. Thetis attempted to render her son Achilles invulnerable. As most know, she dipped him in the River Styx, holding him by one heel, which remained vulnerable. Though other tales spoke of his mother Thetis, anointing the boy in ambrosia and put him on top of a fire to burn away the mortal parts of his body. She was interrupted by Peleus and she abandoned both father and son in a rage, leaving his heel vulnerable. Peleus gave Achilles to the centaur Chiron, to raise on Mt. Pelion, which took its name from Peleus. At the Battle of Troy, Achilles used Peleus' immortal horses and also wielded his father's spear. When Achilles was a boy, the seer Calchas prophesied that the city of Troy could not be taken without his help. Thetis knew that, if her son went to Troy, he would die an early death, so she sent him to the court of Lycomedes, in Scyros; there he was hidden, disguised as a young girl. During his stay he had an affair with Lycomedes' daughter, Deidameia, and she had a son, Pyrrhus, by him. Achilles' disguise was finally penetrated by Odysseus, who placed arms and armor amidst a display of women's finery and seized upon Achilles when he was the only "maiden" to be fascinated by the swords and shields. Achilles then went willingly with Odysseus to Troy, leading a host of his father's Myrmidons and accompanied by his tutor Phoenix and his close friend Patroclus. At Troy, Achilles distinguished himself as an undefeatable warrior. Among his other exploits, he captured twenty-three towns in Trojan territory, including the town of Lyrnessos, where he took the woman Briseis as a war-prize. Later on Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, was forced by an oracle of Apollo to give up his own war-prize, the woman Chryseis, and took Briseis away from Achilles as compensation for his loss. This action sparked the central plot of the Iliad, for Achilles became enraged and refused to fight for the Greeks any further. The war went badly, and the Greeks offered handsome reparations to their greatest warrior; Achilles still refused to fight in person, but he agreed to allow his friend Patroclus to fight in his place, wearing his armor. The next day Patroclus was killed and stripped of the armor by the Trojan hero Hector, who mistook him for Achilles. Achilles was overwhelmed with grief for his friend and rage at Hector. His mother obtained magnificent new armor for him from Hephaestus, and he returned to the fighting and killed Hector. He desecrated the body, dragging it behind his chariot before the walls of Troy, and refused to allow it to receive funeral rites. When Priam, the king of Troy and Hector's father, came secretly into the Greek camp to plead for the body, Achilles finally relented as he was moved by the king's plea, he received Priam graciously and allowed him to take the body away. After the death of Hector, Achilles' days were numbered. He continued fighting heroically, killing many of the Trojans and their allies, including Memnon and the Amazon warrior Penthesilia. Finally Priam's son Paris, aided by Apollo, wounded Achilles in the heel with an arrow; Achilles died of the wound. After his death, it was decided to award Achilles' divinely-wrought armor to the bravest of the Greeks. Odysseus and Ajax competed for the prize, with each man making a speech explaining why he deserved the honor; Odysseus won, and Ajax then went mad and committed suicide. Return of the Myrmidons Blast from the Past Hundreds of years quickly turned into thousands, and before too long, the legends of the founding heroes of Aegina had become nothing more than myth. The tales still loved but dismissed as nothing more than fantasy. After Achilles' time, the island no longer belonged to the family that had built every inch of it. The Myrmidons had lost their leader and soon were lost in time, and forgotten just as their fierce leader had been. The island, however, remained, and people descended on it quickly to claim it as their own, and soon a new era of Aegina royalty was born. They would hold onto their seat for many long years, until near the end of the 12th century, Achilles was reclaimed from Hades. Aided by the gods, he swam up the River Styx and returned to the land of the living, thousands of years after his death at Troy. His freedom from death, however, had made him a slave of the living and beautifully deadly Callandra of Midas. Achilles was taken to meet the golden queen at her legendary Isle of Midas, with its buildings and streets paved with gold. Initially thankful for his rescue, he quickly realized that there was a price to be paid, one of eternal servitude to the queen of gold. He was pampered and given run of the mighty isle palace, and it was there that Achilles met his future wife, Kyra Spyros, who was nothing more than a slave to the golden queen. Achilles quickly saw through the facade of Callandra, and with the help of Kyra, they escaped the isle and fled to the mainland of Greece. Together with Kyra, he explored the many places he had once been in his youth, coming to terms with the effects of time. Cities he had known were nothing but rubble, people he had once called friends were nothing but dust in the wind. Everything as gone, except him, and he realized he had to rebuild his life again. They traveled all over, reclaiming his armour and his weaponry that had been hidden in the most deadly of locations. They faced minotaurs and chimeras, but they claimed the prize, but one more remained. Aegina, Achilles' rightful seat of power. Achilles was never renowned for subtly or discretion, and so after some brief planning with Clitius, he faced the King of Aegina and challenged him. The king fell within minutes and Achilles proclaimed the island to be called Myrmidon, and appointed himself as king. No one argued with him, and a new era for the island was born. And with it, Achilles went about to resurrect the legendary Myrmidons, to train the best fighting force Greece had ever seen. He had his crown, his people and soon his warriors to defend his lands, but he was in need of something else. He needed a queen. The Royal House of Myrmidon Although unmarried, Achilles made the bold move of proclaiming Kyra his queen. Though she had only been a slave, he had seen the spirit that lay inside her and soon he realized he had fallen for her as well. After the infamous War of Midas and the events that had followed, Achilles and Kyra were married, and shortly after their wedding (barely hours in fact), they welcomed their twin children to the world; Panos, who would one day be king, and Lyra, the future queen of Elis. Their twins would be the first born to carry the royal name of Myrmidon. They later welcomed another princess, Arista. Locations 'Cities & Towns of Myrmidon:' *'Myrmex' - Home of the Amber Palace *'Antsnest' - A small town near Myrmex, location of the famous tavern, 'The Achilles Heel'. *'Sandstone' *'Titanfall' - Home of the amphitheater called The Titan's Pit. *'Queenspool' - Originally the location of a royal bathhouse given to Queen Kyra by her husband, King Achilles, it is now the site of a small flourishing town. *'Bronzegate' *'Thetisport' - The main harbour 'Forts & Misc. Locations of Myrmidon' *'The Warcamp' *'Duskfort' *'Shadowguard' *'Pride Rock' *'The Temple of Zeus' *'Chiron's Seat' - The largest mountain of the island. *'Snakewood' - A dry woodland area that spreads over most of the central band of the island. *'Bay of Songs' - The site of Thetisport. *'The Legend of Achilles' - An enormous statue of the late, great King Achilles, commissioned by his son when he never returned from Hades. It took over 20 years to complete, and can now be seen for miles around. New_Myrmidon_Sigil.jpg|The Official Royal Arms of the ruling house Myrmidon_Official_Seal.jpg|Myrmidon's Official Seal 32.jpg|Achilles' tent at the Myrmidon War Camp 71.jpg|Achilles & Kyra's bedroom 70.jpg|View from the bedroom 66.jpg|Temple of the Gods 62.jpg|Exterior of the temple, once solely attributed to Apollo 77.jpg|A Royal Welcome - The Main Gates to the Plaza 57.jpg|The Plaza 9sdfsdfd.jpg|A Rare Sight! The Plaza when empty 33.jpg|The bustle of the War Camp 25sdfsdfd.jpg|The Courtyards at Night 27eeeeedddd.jpg|The Courtyards 28eeess.jpg| 29eededd.jpg| 30zezef.jpg| 107.jpg|Panos' Leisure Suite 27sdffd.jpg|The War of Midas took its toll... Kyrastatue1.jpg|The Queen's statue in Myrmidon, presented to her after the birth of their twins. Achilles_Bust.jpg|A statue of Achilles inside the Amber Palace. Achilles'_Statue.jpg|When Achilles never returned from Hades, his son, Panos, had this commissioned in honour of his lost father. 7.jpg|The Queen's Funeral Achilles' statue.jpg|The Legend of Achilles 5108_1_large.jpg|The Duskfort City_of_thyn_by_dream_monger-d4c2hwf.jpg|Sandstone Colosseum_gladiator.jpg|The Titan's Pit 03.jpg|The bathhouse of Queenspool This-is-an-aegean-sea-n1-greece-greece_1152_12914359452-tpfil02aw-1620.jpg|The Bay of Songs Ad_127900197.jpg|Thetisport 74976.jpg|Pride Rock Casterly_Rock.jpg| Mt-Athos.jpg|Chiron's Seat Xuasus1.jpg|Shadowguard 0200.jpg|The Steps of The Temple of Zeus 122.jpg|Inside The Temple of Zeus Category:Location